He beat 23-year-old Burrow in straight sets in the semi-finals of the 2003 European championships which were hosted for the second consecutive year by the Jersey Croquet Club at their lawn at Les Quennevais last Friday until Sunday.’Mulliner was really coming into top form, I have never seen him play so well,’ Richard Sowerby of the JCC said.Mulliner and Burrow are both England test match players and, ironically, are doubles partners in the England set-up, so they know each other’s game well.’The match was best of three and Mulliner won in straight sets.
When players are of this high standard it’s the player who keeps his ball in play who will win,’ Sowerby said, adding that if the player makes a mistake then their opponent gets an opportunity to come into the game.’It’s a bit like snooker where if one player fails to pot a ball the other one then gets their turn at the table and, as in snooker, the one who opens play has the advantage.’A previous European champion five times, Mulliner went on to beat fellow England player and current world champion Robert Fulford in the final, losing the first set but winning the next two convincingly, punishing Fulford for making an error; the final score was – 26 to, + 26 tp, + 17 tp.In the plate final Sarah Burrow was beaten in a very close game by Jonathan Lamb, a British ex-pat who now plays for the Belgian team.’It was an excellent weekend of competition, and there were 30 players representing 15 countries from as far south as Italy and as far north as Sweden taking part.
The Swedish players were newcomers this year and more countries are joining the federation,’ Sowerby said.Like golf and bowls, croquet is becoming a younger person’s sport – all four semi-finalists were under 40 with one player, Jonathan Kirby of Scotland, still at university while a Spanish representative, Andreas Alvarez-Santos was just 16 years old.’The interesting thing, too, is that in the USA, golf croquet is taking over from golf as a popular sport,’ Sowerby claimed.
